"We don't want him for entertainment. He's dangerous. Perhaps the single most dangerous man who has ever entered this country."
Chiun overlooked the insult because of the tremendous fee Sinanju would be getting. What could one expect from a madman but to think a hypnotist was more dangerous than his House of Sinanju that Smith had paid for? Any sane emperor, if he really thought that, would keep the whole matter quiet lest his lords serve those who bought the services of the other one, the one who here and now Smith declared as most dangerous.
"We will struggle but win, as always," said Chiun, careful to play on the fact of an awesome opponent, but just as careful to remind Mad Harold that when he bought Sinanju, he had bought the best in assassins. In fact, Chiun was thinking of adopting a fine American practice. In every new appliance he saw a note informing the purchaser that he had bought the best of its kind in the world, congratulating him on his wisdom in doing so.
Chiun thought it might be nice to have a scroll prepared for every future tyrant, despot, and king Sinanju served, letting each one know how wise he was in employing the finest assassins in all history. Begin it with:
"Congratulations, you have employed the finest . . ." et cetera.
Chiun nodded again to some more nonsense and then squeezed a small box Mad Harold put in his hand.
"Not now, Chiun. When you have succeeded in eliminating Vassily Rabinowitz, then press that button. I will know he is dead."
"But you know he is dead already, now that your Magnificence, O Wise Harold, had decreed him so."
"Nevertheless, I'd like you to use that. We are paying an extraordinary tribute for this. We don't even know how much yet. And this is the way I want to do it."
"Of course. We always appreciate direction and help in this thing we have only been doing forty-eight hundred years before America was born," said Chiun, allowing himself a little sarcasm. But Smith did not respond.
"Death to the evil hypnotist," said Chiun. As was his strange custom, a scant time later the telephone rang and it was the voice of Harold W. Smith. They had tracked down a probable place for Vassily Rabinowitz, the poor little hypnotist whose life would be forfeited in the most splendid financial arrangement in the history of the House of Sinanju.
"O wise one, how is a person in a probable place? A place is or it is not."
As soon as he said it, Chiun realized he never should have mentioned it in the first place because the answer was ridiculous to the point of the absurd.
Smith's system was tracking incidents most probably done by the poor hypnotist, things that would be reported to the police and to intelligence agencies. Smith had a machine that could scan and analyze these reports, and from these reports Vassiiy Rabinowitz was probably in Fort Pickens, Arkansas.
When Smith was finished prattling, Chiun asked the important question.
"Do you want the head or not? I know you traditionally don't take the head for your palace walls, but we recommend it, especially for an important assassination. It can be done quite tastefully."
"No. Just make sure you do kill him. There was an incident in Russia where tough KGB troops thought they had him and they ended up shooting each other."
"And secret, too, I take it. The usual secrecy."
"Oh yes. Absolutely. Secret. Of course. We don't want anyone to know we exist."
"Yes. Of course. Make a great assassination seem like a head cold. Very subtle, O wise one."
"No. In this case I don't care whether it looks like an accident. I want him dead. I want to be sure he's dead. Use the box. He's already probably into our armed forces. We only missed a nuclear launch in Omaha by a hair's breadth. This man has got to die."
"With the speed of the winds of the Kalahari, O wise one," said Chiun, who made sure he took enough time to be properly dressed. Nothing loud, even though America tended to be loud. A basic pink would be good for the kimono to be used in this assassination, a basic pink, a simple blow, a quick death, and then perhaps wait a week or so before hitting the button on the box. For after all, if the assassination proved so easy, might not Mad Harold think of reneging on that awesome reward? Of course, speed would show the greatness of Sinanju, and Mad Harold paid for the strangest things.
Chiun thought about that and by the time he reached Ford Pickens, Arkansas, Chiun decided to risk informing Mad Harold immediately. Then he would whisk Remo away to a saner emperor, a new Remo, a Remo who had seen the beneficence of the Great Wang and asked the important question only to get the important answer.
At the gate, Chiun was told that people who dressed in pink had to be women, or they could not enter the base. How typical of American whites that they would insist that entrance to a military base require a sex-change operation. No wonder they had lost their last war, and probably would lose the next.
The guard held out his palm to bar Chiun's entrance and then didn't bother Chiun anymore. Most people didn't who needed immediate treatment for multiple fractures of the hand.
Chiun glided into Fort Pickens. He saw the flags, the uniforms, the appearance of activity while people were generally doing nothing. He could come in at night and do unseen work, but killing a lowly hypnotist for a vast fortune was so bizarre to begin with, he wanted to do it in daylight to make sure it was really happening.
Chiun surveyed the camp. Nothing much had really changed since the Romans except this camp was not defended properly. Romans would always have a moat and a wall. Americans made do with fences. Perhaps that was because they had guns nowadays.
He saw dust in the distance, always a sign of cavalry. He stopped an officer to ask if he had heard of a Vassily Rabinowitz around.
"You mean Old Blood 'n' Guts Rabinowitz?" asked the officer.
Horror struck Chiun. Had someone already filled this enormous contract on the hypnotist?
"He is only blood and guts now?" asked Chiun.
"Only? He's the toughest, smartest general since George S. Patton, Jr. We call him Old Blood 'n' Guts."
"Oh, he sheds other people's blood. Ah well, this is good," said Chiun. Not only was Rabinowitz alive, but he blessedly had a better reputation than just a lowly hypnotist, a man who could convince some souls that it was warm when it was cold, cool when it was hot, and that they were barking dogs.
Some people could even be made to not feel pain, although why anyone would want to do that to his body, Chiun never knew.
One could sense, like with any great conqueror, the presence of Rabinowitz far off. Soldiers and officers alike looked strained and angry. It meant they had been worked properly. Great commanders could do that. Good soldiers did not resent it, rather they respected it even though they might complain from time to time.
"Old Blood 'n' Guts is something today. I don't know if he'll scare our enemies, but he sure as hell scares me," Chiun heard one officer comment.
"First time we've ever really done real maneuvers. I'll be grateful for war just to stop this torture."
When Chiun got to a broad plain surrounded by foothills, he could make out clearly by the deference of the men who the commander was. Tanks were firing on moving targets with surprising accuracy. Rebel yells came from men in the armored vehicles. This definitely was an army preparing well for war.
It would be a noble assassination, to go along with the noble price.
Rabinowitz was waving his arm and yelling. He stood on a platform, pointing with a swagger stick. He could yell orders to two people at once.
He had been described as a sad-eyed man, but these eyes flashed with joy. It was a shame that Chiun would have to end his career at this moment, not later, after he had become as famous as Napoleon, Alexander, or Caesar. But a contract was a contract.
"Rabinowitz," cried out Chiun. "Vassily Rabinowitz." The man now called Old Blood 'n' Guts turned around. Chiun saw by the movement even before the voice that this was a recognition of self. People could not help doing it. It was more a proof of identity than the face, or even the Eastern magic of the fingerprin
t. This was the simple reflex of the person identifying himself.
And Rabinowitz had done it with his eyes. Chiun knew that all the soldiers were looking now at him because of the beauty of his pink robe in this drab setting. Mad Harold had ordered secrecy, not invisibility.
The platform was just over his head. Chiun moved to it with grace, less effort than a leap, more motion than a step, and now he was face-to-face with the most gloriously rewarded assassination in all history.
The center of the skull begged for a single penetration, quick to the point of invisibility. The simple, basic blew with the force of it working inside the cranium, not outside, not even needing to penetrate.
Rabinowitz wore a plain battle helmet and fatigues. A small pistol was strapped to his waist. The light dust in the noon sun made the air almost like clay in the mouth. The boards on the platform creaked ever so slightly, and a few soldiers started to move up to the platform to get between Chiun and Rabinowitz. And then Chiun stopped his blow, stopped his blow short of the high yellow forehead and laughing black eyes and the equally pink kimono. A jolly fat man, no taller than Chiun, but with thicker hands and forearms, and legs one could tell were chunky underneath his trunk, looked at him, laughing.
"What are you doing here? What's your name? How come no one could stop you at the gate? What is that silly pink dress?"
The questions came so quickly that Chiun could barely answer them, but answer he must.
"Great Wang, what are you doing here?"
"Look, I asked you first. If I wanted to answer I would have answered first already. So what's with you and that pink dress?"
Of course the Great Wang was joking, but Chiun would never presume to refuse an answer.
"O great one, it is I, Chiun, I am here on the most wonderfully paid assassination in all history. A mere hypnotist named Rabinowitz, and the price I got-"
"Who wants to kill Rabinowitz?"
"The Mad Emperor Harold. He is nothing, but I did not expect to see you again, great one, in my lifetime. It is Remo's turn. "
"Why would anyone want to kill a nice person like Vassily Rabinowitz?" asked the Great Wang. Soldiers who had been advancing on Chiun made it up to the platform. In order to be absolutely perfect before the Great Wang himself, Chiun used the simplest of breathing combined with the basic force stroke, taking off heads as a form of honor. Nothing special, single movements through the spinal column, leaving the heads for the dust. He could have popped them up, caught them, and done a presentation, but that was flamboyance for customers.
The soldiers, seeing jackhammers smash off heads, went for their weapons or for cover. No one watched the horror without doing something, except for Old Blood 'n' Guts and the strange killer in the pink dress.
The old Oriental was talking weird. One of the soldiers thought of getting up on the platform with them, but the prospect of a severed head made him think twice. Far off, tanks stopped their firing.
Men crowded around the wood platform to see what the man in pink would do to Old Blood 'n' Guts. Someone chased a head, trying to match it to a body. Not knowing what to do with it, he put it down on the ground and covered it with his own helmet. Graves Registration should take care of that, thought the soldier.
"Mad Harold has the strangest assignments, Great Wang. But why do I see you twice in this lifetime? Is it that I, perhaps, am the greatest Master after you?"
"Shut up already with the greatness, hazarei. Is this Mad Harold a communist sympathizer?"
"I betook myself too much greatness, didn't I? For that I am sorry. Mad Harold is a client."
"What do you sell'?" asked the Great Wang.
"What you did, magnificent one. The services of the greatest house of assassins of all time."
"And you want to kill this nice fellow Rabinowitz?"
"You know him, Great Wang?"
"Know him? Man's a peach. Life should be defended at all costs. He's our main client."
"That's what you came to tell me?" asked Chiun.
"And that you shouldn't let anyone bother me, either. Either one will do. Hang around."
"What joy, to be in your presence again, great one."
"A little bit to the left. You're blocking my view of my army. We're planning big things. Big. Ever have a war? I think they're fun. Used to hate them. Wondered why they had such bad publicity. Damned well couldn't be from the generals who ran them."
Was this the Great Wang? Chiun looked again. No assassin approved of war where thousands of amateurs worked or where the professionals got paid. But there was the high forehead. There was the jolly smile. There was the somewhat full body, and of course, there was the unmistakable kimono of Sinanju.
Chiun bowed at the Great Wang and stepped aside. With contempt he broke the box with the button Mad Harold has asked him to press when the assassination was done.
To understand Sinanju was to understand that if the Great Wang seemed odd, it was the student who was odd. For the Great Wang had gone to the center of the universe, and anything that was not of that center was off balance. So had spoken the many Masters since the passing of the "joyful one," as the Great Wang was known.
It was not Chiun, but it was Sinanju. Remo knew that. He had been looking at the sky, feeling himself become all the darkness the sun was not, feeling the water in the little fountain of Vistana Views, feeling all that was alive in him succumb to the lethargy of what might be the last sleep, when he heard the movement.
It was a step, but not a step. Most people walked on the balls or the heels of their feet. Sinanju walked on the whole foot. It was a rustling of a glide, so quiet one had to hear it with one's mind.
But it was there.
"I have been waiting a long time to meet someone from outside the village," came the voice. It was Korean, the northwest dialect, like Chiun's, but it lacked the shrillness. It had a laugh to it.
Remo did not answer.
"You're white. I always knew a white could do it. Good for you, Remo. Good for you, Remo Williams. Good for you."
It felt strange to hear that dialect say something so positive. Remo did not turn around. It was not that he was afraid it might be a mirage. He was afraid it might not be. He was at the lowest point he could remember. He felt worn and useless, and incapable of anything. More important, he didn't want to do anything.
"Are you feeling sorry for yourself? Have you become like Chiun?"
Remo did not like anyone talking about Chiun like that. He had often thought that of Chiun, and worse. But he did not like to hear anyone else say it.
"If you have something against Chiun, why don't you tell him?" said Remo.
"I have. I told him he was childish and self-centered. I told him sometimes he was ludicrous with his pretensions about who we are."
"You may be in my mind. I've achieved realities through my mind. I'm not even going to look at you," said Remo. There was laughter behind him. He ignored it.
"Of course I am only in your mind. So is the world. So is the universe, a mind inside a mind inside a mind, Remo. Ah, you are most certainly Chiun's pupil. He loves you, you know. He had a son who died, who did not survive training. "
Remo turned around. A short, somewhat fat man with a high forehead and a perfect smile sat on the bed, with his hands resting on his knees. He looked as though all the world was a joke.
"The Great Wang," said Remo.
This the figure dismissed. "Your Brother Wang, Master Remo. You are become a Master."
"So?" said Recno.
"Better than kissing a litchi nut. Why are you moderns so serious? You and Chiun. Both of you. You think you're saving the world. Chiun thinks he is saving the House of Sinanju, and between you both, neither of you has stopped one second to smell a flower or watch a sunset. What are you on earth for? To speed the population to its graves?"
"You weren't an assassin?"
"Of course, but not like you two. Are you getting paid by the head? What is the matter with both of you? Chiun kills at the s
lightest disappointment, you kill as though you personally can bring justice to the world, and both of you need a good night out. When was the last time you loved a woman?"
"A while ago. It didn't work out. It never does. I didn't know Chiun lost a son."
"Yes, he failed to be aware of his son's shortcomings, and in attempting a high climb the boy died. He doesn't want to lose you. He doesn't admit it, but he loves you, more than his son."
"He always rags me about being white."
"Chiun is a snob. The best thing he ever did was bring a white into the family. Remo, you're home. America is not your home anymore. It is your roots. But your home is Sinanju. And you are sad now because for the first time you are really leaving your home."
"Am I coming to a new level?" asked Remo.
"You have been there a while," said the Great Wang. "That is what hurts. From this moment on you begin to die."
"Why is that?" asked Remo.
"Because that is what happens to one who has reached his peak," said the Great Wang. And Remo knew it was true.
Chapter 10
At five hundred yards Gusev Balbek could put a bullet through a person's eye during a windstorm. At a thousand yards he could bisect a chest. At fifteen hundred yards he could guarantee hitting a running man and stopping him.
That was with a sniper rifle. With a pistol he could shoot the beaks off low-flying birds. He would do these things for two hours every morning, partly to keep in practice, partly to keep the smiling commissars happy.
They would come, sometimes in the company of generals, and they would say most politely:
"Don't let us disturb you. We just wish to watch." And then Gusev would put on the special performance. The honored guests would sit on a wooden stand made to look like a replica of an American inauguration platform. A dummy in a formal suit was made to move its arms by means of a small motor.
Gusev Balbek would walk fifteen hundred yards away, slowly, to impress upon them all how great a distance it was. Fifteen hundred yards was outside the cordon of protection of a head of state. All high officials knew that. Anything beyond a thousand yards just merited a cursory inspection to make sure no large band of men or a howitzer was lurking out there. A single person was not something security men would worry about at that distance. Everyone knew that.
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